Saturday, December 15, 2007

Some old and not so old articles of mine about Chinese cartoons and woodcuts in Singapore.

“Fragments of the Past”: Political Prints of Post-war Singapore (The Heritage Journal, Vol 2, No 1, 2005)

These prints reflect the post-war history of Singapore and its road to independence and nationhood. However the history of woodblock prints in Singapore, despite the vibrancy of the medium in the 1950s and 1960s, has not been well documented until the 1998 exhibition. The formation of the Contemporary Printmaking Association in 1980 did not keep the tradition of woodblock printing alive as it promoted new printmaking methods then. It was only when the association was renamed Printmaking Society (Singapore) in January 1998 that interest in woodblock printing was revived through its participation in the SHM woodcut print exhibition.

With the theme "Asian Youth Culture", 10 leading cartoonists from 10 Asian nations have produced 75 works depicting the youth culture in their respective nations. The participants come from Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, The Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

Monday, December 10, 2007

This will be a weekend packed with otaku events. On top of EOY 2007 and Comics Fiesta, Chuang Yi's MUGEN will be making an appearance at BookFest 2007 this Saturday (15 Dec) at Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre.From 5 - 6pm, the contributors to MUGEN will introduce themselves, as well as present their works and the six-issue limited anthology of local talents.

Local doujin circle débutante Collateral Damage Doujin Studios (CDDS) will be launching her first doujinshi (同人誌) - SUPERSCENIC - at two otaku events this weekend.This doujinshi is a collaboration with Tera, and comes with an original soundtrack composed by the doujin musician. You can meet the artists and get a copy of SUPERSCENIC this Saturday (15 Dec) at EOY 2007 at Singapore Expo as well as Comics Fiesta (15 - 16 Dec) at Times Square Berjaya in Kuala Lumpur. Sneak peek of artwork here